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Using GraphQL with Astro

Astro is an extremely fast and flexible Javascript site framework that can generate static sites with ExpressionEngine using Coilpack's GraphQL API. This guide assumes you have already installed Coilpack and ExpressionEngine.

Configure Coilpack​

Coilpack ships with the GraphQL integration disabled by default. You will need to enable it by adding COILPACK_GRAPHQL_ENABLED=true to your Laravel .env file.

For the purposes of this guide we are also going to disable any authentication requirements on our GraphQL endpoint so you should also add COILPACK_GRAPHQL_AUTH_ENABLED=false to your .env file.

Create an Astro Site​

Now we will create a new Astro site. You can perform this setup anywhere but it should be in a different directory than your Coilpack installation.

npm create astro@latest

Where should we create your new project?
# <Type a Path>

How would you like to start your new project?
# <Choose Empty>

Install dependencies?
# <Choose Yes>

Initialize a new git repository?
# <Your choice>

Do you plan to write TypeScript?
# <Your choice>

Liftoff confirmed. Explore your project!

Once the installation is complete you can change into the Astro project directory and start the live reload development server.

cd astro-project-folder
npm run dev
tip

If the installation was successful, your project will be available at http://localhost:4321/.

Connect to GraphQL​

After we install Astro we are going to create a helper class to run our GraphQL queries through. Astro is extremely flexible so you can handle this part in many different ways.

Create a new file at src/graphql.js with the following content:

caution

Make sure you update the static endpoint = ''; line below to point at your Coilpack site and the graphql endpoint (/graphql by default)

class GraphQL {

    // Change this url to match your Coilpack installation's APP_URL
    static endpoint = 'http://coilpack-site-url.test/graphql';

    static async query(query) {
        const headers = {
            'Content-Type': 'application/json'
        };

        const response = await fetch(this.endpoint, {
            method: 'POST',
            headers,
            body: JSON.stringify({ query }),
        });

        const json = await response.json();

        if (json.errors) {
            console.log(json.errors);
            throw new Error('GraphQL query failed.');
        }

        return json.data;
    }
}

export default GraphQL;

Creating our Home Page​

And then we will create a simplified home page at src/pages/index.astro. We will be using the Channel Entries Query to list out our entries and the Global Variables Query to get our Site Name.

---
import GraphQL from '../graphql';

const data = await GraphQL.query(`
{
    variables{
        site_name
    }
    exp_channel_entries {
        data {
            entry_id
            title
            url_title
        }
    }
}
`);
---

<html lang="en">
    <body>
        <h1>{data.variables.site_name}</h1>

        <ul>
        { data.exp_channel_entries.data.map(entry => {
            return (<li><a href={"entry/"+entry.url_title}>{entry.title}</a></li>)
        })}
        </ul>
    </body>
</html>

You should see a list of your entries rendered out on your site's home page now. However clicking the links to these entries will result in a 404 page until we complete the next step.

Setting up our Pages​

Next we will set up a template that each of our individual pages will use to populate and display their content. In Astro this file is also responsible for the dynamic page routing which you will see handled by the getStaticPaths() function below.

Create a new file at ./src/pages/entry/[slug].astro with the following content:

---
const { slug } = Astro.params;
import GraphQL from '../../graphql';

let data = await GraphQL.query(`
{
    exp_channel_entries(url_title: "${slug}") {
        data {
            entry_id
            title
            url_title
            page_content
        }
    }
}
`)

let entry = data.exp_channel_entries.data[0];

export async function getStaticPaths() {
    let data = await GraphQL.query(`
    {
        exp_channel_entries(per_page:1000) {
            data {
                entry_id
                url_title
            }
        }
    }
  `);

  return data.exp_channel_entries.data.map((entry) => ({
    params: { slug: entry.url_title },
  }));
}
---
<div>
    <h1>{entry.title}</h1>
    <div set:html={entry.page_content}></div>
</div>

Now you should be able to click the entry links on the home page and view each individual entry's content from our new template.